Few Irish filmmakers have had as much consistency and success as Ronan Bennett. Although his works speak louder than his name in North America, Bennett is steadily gaining the attention he rightly deserves. The multi-talented Irishman has had a successful career as a novelist, screenwriter, and creator of several TV series.
With his professional career beginning in 1991, Ronan Bennett’s career spans three decades. Over the years, Bennett has earned a reputation for his ability to tackle complex issues through compelling narratives, whether on the page or screen. With another hit series, MobLand, under his belt, here’s a look at the underrated Irish filmmaker Ronan Bennett.
Ronan Bennett Was Imprisoned at Age 18
Ronan Bennett was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on January 14, 1956. Although born in Belfast, Bennett was raised in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland. Like many Northern Irish families, Bennett was born and raised in a Roman Catholic home. However, at age 18, Bennett was convicted of murder related to an IRA bank robbery in 1974. A non-jury Diplock court convicted Bennett of killing 49-year-old Inspector William Elliott, an officer of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Unsurprisingly, Ronan Bennett was sentenced to life in prison. However, Bennett was released within a year after the conviction was deemed unsafe due to the poor quality of the evidence.
He Was Arrested Again at Age 22
Ronan Bennett’s early years were chaotic, largely due to his political leanings. In another of several run-ins with the law, Bennett was arrested in 1978, alongside Iris Mills. Bennett and Mills were remanded in prison for 16 months. Interestingly, Ronan Bennett opted to conduct his own defense in court. A year later, in 1979, like his previous imprisonment, Bennett and Mills were acquitted. After their release, the duo sought to rebuild the Wapping Autonomy Centre, which had received support from Anarcho-punk band Poison Girls and Crass. However, the property was eventually vandalized by several punk music fans who visited the venue.
Ronan Bennett Graduated With a First Class From the University
Despite his challenging youth, Ronan Bennett stayed focused on getting an education. After his conviction was overturned in 1975, he earned a first-class honors degree in History from King’s College London. Several years later, in 1987, Bennett obtained his doctorate on 17th-century English crime and law enforcement. In the same year, Jeremy Corbyn hired Bennett as a researcher. Corbin, who was then a member of Parliament, later became the Leader of the Labour Party. At the time, because of Bennett’s political leanings, his hiring by Corbin stirred controversy. To date, Ronan Bennett has remained a member of the Labour Party, endorsing Jeremy Corbin for Prime Minister at the 2019 UK general election.
Ronan Bennett Lost His Wife in 2014
Ronan Bennett was married to Georgina Henry. The couple first met at King’s College London and began dating while they were students there. However, it wasn’t until 2003 that the couple made things official by getting married. At the peak of her career, before her death, Georgina Henry was a journalist and deputy editor of The Guardian. After undergoing surgery to remove her eye and excise the tumor, Henry succumbed to her sinus cancer in February 2014. Before her death, the couple had two children, including British actor Finn Bennett, famous for his role as Peter Prior in season 4 of HBO’s anthology crime drama True Detective: Night Country.
Ronan Bennett Is a Chess Enthusiast
The multifaceted novelist and screenwriter also has a passion for chess. Although an amateur, Bennett has co-hosted a weekly chess column in The Guardian with English Grandmaster Daniel King since 2006. The success of the column has been attributed to its focus on instructive analysis of their games rather than being topical. Not a stranger to controversy, the column was subject to a series of debates by chess faithful who believed English chess Grandmaster Nigel Short’s column was removed and replaced by Bennett and King’s column. It all pointed to nepotism, as they believed it was influenced by Bennett’s late wife, who had worked at the newspaper at the time.
Ronan Bennett Has Published Several Best-Sellers
Ronan Bennett’s first published novel, The Second Prison, was in 1991. The novel was shortlisted for the Irish Times/Aer Lingus Prize in the same year. He followed it with Overthrown by Strangers, published in 1992. However, it was Bennett’s third novel, The Catastrophist (1998), that brought him fame. In total, Ronan Bennett has published five fiction and two non-fiction novels. In 2008, he wrote a memoir, “Life and Death in Long Kesh,” which was published in The Guardian, about his time in prison.
Ronan Bennett’s Hit Screen Projects
Ronan Bennett began his filmmaking career as a screenwriter. This was an easy transition with his success as a novelist. His earliest work as a writer was in 1993 when he contributed to several film and television screenplays. His two most prominent screenwriting credits on the big screen are Face (1997) and the Johnny Depp and Christian Bale-led Michael Mann’s 2009 biographical crime drama Public Enemies.
Bennett also worked on a few television screenplays before creating the hit British crime drama Top Boy. The TV series earned Bennett his first BAFTA TV Awards nomination in 2012 and a win, 12 years later in 2024, for Best Drama Series. Bennett wrote the screenplay of the 2017 British historical drama miniseries Gunpowder. His two most recent TV projects, which have placed him in the spotlight, are the Peacock British spy thriller The Day of the Jackal (2024) and Paramount+ British crime drama MobLand (2025).
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